


Your Sharp Green Light

by deepcreek



Category: Mortal Engines Series - Philip Reeve
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Lesbian Character of Color, POV Character of Color, Pining, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 12:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11161752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepcreek/pseuds/deepcreek
Summary: Here is what happened to Sathya, who loved the air and machines and a woman named Anna, and who hated many other things.





	Your Sharp Green Light

The first time Sathya sees her, the Hammer of the East has just killed the Sultaness of New Kinshasa. She has also killed a lot of other people, and bombed the floating city to the bottom of the ocean. The Keystone of the Wall is about twenty-four, and covered in mud and engine oil and fear-sweat, and when the traders get the news out more people will want to kill her than anyone else in the world. Sathya looks into the woman’s pale, tired face and sees her future.

There are mutterings of disappointment from the village children around her upon seeing a bedtime-story hero so ragged and unwashed, but when Sathya is called away to help with the welcome feast, she can’t stop chattering about the state of Anna Fang’s airship. With the shots the boiler took, and the tears in the steering vanes, it’s clear the aviatrix must have drifted since her victory; she is truly under the eye of the gods, to have found their tiny anti-tractionist settlement before one of the great cities of the subcontinent spotted the telltale red envelope of the Jenny Haniver.

Sathya’s Aunt Durva sucks her teeth as she plates the stew, her steady hands producing a perfect circle in the center of the mound of rice. “Baby girl, you spend too much time up in the clouds with the airships. You’re thirteen; time to start thinking about boys you’d like to settle down with, or at the very least learning how to feed yourself. The next time the city rolls through, I might not be here to teach you.” And then, despite her harsh words, she sends Sathya out to present the first dish to the Aviatrix Anna Fang.

Their honored guest is telling some fascinating tales. There are undead warriors whose eyes glow spring green, distant isles across endless oceans, and traction-city tortures her aunt would certainly cover her ears for. As it is, Aunt Durva has gone to bed early, exhausted from cooking and cleaning for such an unexpected and important guest. Sathya crouches eagerly at her idol’s side, far enough back from the fire that her elders can’t see her. She stays long after the children have been sent to bed.

When the League-Witch casts off from her makeshift docking platform after three days of work and three nights of tales, her steering vanes have red saris patching their holes, and her boiler has been augmented with smelted bridles. She has a thirteen-year-old girl in her hold. Sathya has brought her own set of dishes, and she touches the controls of the Jenny as though it were a god or a lover. Indeed, she will whisper more secrets to it, and destroy more to obtain it, than she ever will do for any person but its mistress.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prologue. I'm already working on the next chapter. If I've made any errors in my worldbuilding of Sathya's North Indian village, please correct me.


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